Made of Stone
by Shadows of a Dream
Summary: "I taught myself not to cry."  Even murderers can bleed. Sometimes, it's all their only choice. To become hard. Made of stone. Because sometimes, it's the killers who are dying on the inside. Clove is just good at hiding it.  Will be CloveXCato. R&R!
1. I Taught Myself Not to Cry

**A/N: **Clove's last name that I gave her, "Headen," is Latin for "broken." I'm heavily using Latin, since many Hunger Games canon names are derived from Latin (and THG has heavy ancient-Roman influence.) Clove's mother's name, "Tesella," means "a small cube of stone" in Latin. Her father's name, "Silex," could mean "any hard stone, such as flint." Due to District 2 being the Masonry District, I thought the names' meanings were appropriate.

I hope you enjoy this story. Please review! Please, please, please! I'll make sure you never get reaped for the Games if you do! Updates here are sporadic and not guaranteed, so feedback would really encourage me to continue!

May the odds be _ever _in your favor!

**...**

_**POV: Clove Headen**_

It started with words. All the worst fights do. "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me," they all say. Well, they're wrong. I would know.

A few nights spent alone in the dark can teach a kid a lot.

The screaming got worse and worse, and the words cut deep, and I would run to my room and close the door. Sink down beside the bed. Clutch my knees to my chest. Close my eyes. Shaking, trembling. _Do not cry. Do not cry._

Outside the door – or just down the hall, if I was still too scared to take off – Mom yelled, about how we didn't have enough food, how we were going to starve, how he had a wife and a daughter and he couldn't just let us die, couldn't just let us die, couldn't just let us die.

Father – I had never called him _Daddy, _only Father– he shouted in that deep, granite voice. "I'm doing everything I can, Tesella! I've been working day and night to feed this family!" he yelled, and slammed his big fists on the table. Hard knuckles cracking against wood. Callous, scar-riddled skin, caked with dried blood from a long day of labor.

"You're never home," Mom choked out. "Always the work. And it's not enough, Silex! Look at your daughter. She's skin and bones! She's wasting away in front of you, and here you are telling me about how hard you work?"

Father grunted. "Do you think it's easy, what I do? Forging weapons, carving stone, trying to put on a mask in front of the endless Peacekeepers when all I want to do is come back and be with you? And Clove?" His voice broke, dropped an octave. The sore, bloodied hands tensed and clenched into fists on the table. "I love you. I love our daughter." The hopelessness in his voice scared me. Serious. Dead serious. "I can't do any more than I already am!"

Tears glistened in Mom's pale blue eyes. "You can't possibly _understand_ –"

"Tell me what I don't understand, Tesella!" Father roared.

"If you can't provide enough for us," Mom stammered, "Clove will have to put in more tessarae when the time comes. And then all of Panem would get to watch her die." She swallowed, teeth gritted. "Is _that_ what you want?" She wept harder. "To see our daughter killed? Or better yet, _killing_?"

By then, I'd usually be hiding in my room. Trying to pretend I hadn't been listening. Wishing I didn't hear the screaming, even if I covered my ears and pretended I was somewhere else.

But if I was still standing in the hall by that late in the fight, I couldn't move. I was stock-still, eyes wide, flinching but unable to turn away. I was a statue: rock solid, made of stone.

Cold.

Hard.

Emotionless.

Just like everything else in District 2.

Because it's easier. Because stone can crack, but it can't shatter. Because I don't know of any other way to numb the pain.

Mom kept shrieking. "_You _may think it's a great honor to District 2 when someone's little girl comes back with a crown and food and medicine," she snapped at Father, "but _I_ say it's hideous! I don't want that for her. _You_ can't want that for her!"

Father's silence cut even deeper than words.

"Of course I don't."

His voice was hollow, belying the impossible burden that the Capitol had laid on his shoulders. "I can't." He looked up, into Mom's tear-streaked eyes, at her scarlet-flushed cheeks, her quivering lips. "I want to help her, Tesella. I love Clove. I love our _family_... You know all I want is for her to be... _happy_..."

That was the first time I saw Father cry.

I cried, too. At first. I learned later not to cry. Tears never hardened anyone, and that was what I had to be. Hard. More than that – impenetrable, untouchable, unbreakable. Like the machetes, axes, and swordblades that Father forged each day. Like the crude, rugged bricks that we shipped out for the Capitol's architecture. Like everything else made in District 2.

Made of stone.

On those nights, I rocked my head between my knees. I shrieked as loud as I could into my pillow, suffocating the awful, agonized noise. I twisted loose strands of my chocolate-brown hair between my fingers – _wind, unwind, wind, unwind. _I set my jaw, squared my shoulders.

I taught myself not to cry.


	2. Slip Through the Cracks

**A/N: **It took a while to find something I was satisfied with, but the last name I assigned to Cato is "Ferrum," a Latin word defined as "iron, sword." I thought it fit his choice of weaponry and his personality. Cato's mother is "Likos", a Greek word for wolf. His father is "Lupus," a Latin word for wolf. Considering Cato's ultimate fate (destroyed by the mutts) I thought I'd use some irony in the naming of his parents.

One of Cato's fellow Careers' names, "Ignis," is Latin for "fire." Zane is just a random, fictional name; so are Roy and Nate.

Thanks for the reviews on the last chapter. To those of you reading this who haven't reviewed, please do so if you have time! It means a lot. I wasn't originally going to do Cato POVs, but the review requesting that convinced me.

I'm not particularly thrilled with how this chapter came out, to be honest. But I'm setting things up for Cato to meet Clove, so please bear with me. And I am, at least, happy with the names I found for my characters.

May the odds be _ever _in your favor!

**...**

_**POV: Cato Ferrum**_

__The older boy's fist drives forward, clenched tight, shooting over the arm I've raised to guard my face – and the bones of his knuckles jab sharply into my ribs. I wince, sucking in a big gasp of air to keep from yelling in pain. I'm just raising my knee to grind it into my opponent's chest when I feel an impact strike me squarely in the jaw.

The hit is jarring. Blinding. My whole skull rattles, pain shooting through my teeth, and I can see a flash of white light launch across my vision. I'm not sure but I think I go flying, maybe flip in the air, but the next thing I know, I hit the dirt on my back. Dizzy. Struggling to breathe.

"Can't take a few blows, Cato?"

I groan. Grit my teeth so they won't see the raw, burning gasps dragging up and down my dusk-choked throat.But I don't try to get up yet. I feel nauseous enough to figure that it wouldn't end well. I'd probably throw up what little I'd eaten for lunch.

Nate stands over me, his green T-shirt sweaty and sticking to him, his arms crossed in arrogant pride. He turns to the others, his golden-brown eyes aflame with rabid joy. "Did you see that?"

Roy gives him a playful punch to the shoulder – the only kind of encouragement a fighter ever really gives to another. "I saw it, alright!" Roy laughs, his metallic green eyes wide. He's practically manic over this. His dirty blond hair is thrown in every conceivable direction, adding to his feral appearance.

Zane nods, characteristically gruff and silent. His cropped brown hair is basic, and his pale green eyes are almost always unreadable, but there's a trace of amusement coloring his stone expression at the moment. "Good fight, Nate," he says.

_Help me up, maybe? _I mentally shrug. Better not to ask. This is bad enough already. I gradually test my lungs – _inhale, exhale – _and begin to recover breath.

Ignis, the only girl in our Career pack, stares down at me with vivid auburn eyes. She runs her fingers through her red mane of hair with contempt. "Disappointing, Cato."

I glower at her, force myself to sit up even though I can feel stabbing pains climbing my spine, a headache pounding in the back of my skull. "I'll teach Nate his lesson next time."

"Oh, really?" Nate taunts.

No way I'm going to let that one slide. I slowly, slowly pull myself to my feet. Nate might have a year and a half on me, but I'm tall for a ten-year-old. Towering over him by a long shot. I glare at him. Feel my gaze smoldering. Revel in how much stronger I feel when I have to look down to meet Nate's eyes. "Don't try me," I warn.

Nate doesn't waver. "You want to go again, Ferrum?"

"I'm not stupid," I growl, my voice black. "I've got nothing to prove to you. I've beaten you before. Now shut your mouth before I shut it for you."

"Do it," Roy urges. "Do it! Teach him a lesson."

Nate wheels on Roy like an animal, black hair whirling in the sudden wind as he seizes him by the shirt collar.

"Hey!" Roy yells, and tries to kick him.

Nate drives his knee into the other boy's gut and Roy goes silent, panting, almost doubled over, his eyes bulging with pain. "Watch it," Nate warns. "Think about whose side you're on!"

"Oh, shut the hell up, Nate," Ignis sighs. She's almost twelve, almost eligible for next year's reaping – thinks she's cool because she can swear and get away with it. "We're all Careers. _Allies_. We're supposed to be training, not acting like kids!"

I feel my hands curl into fists at my sides. "Ignis is right."

Nate still has Roy by the shirt.

Zane groans. "Let him go, Nate."

Nate gives him a look that could kill, but he drops his captive. Free or not, I've never seen Roy so annoyed. He looks like he might kill someone. Maybe he will. Wouldn't be the first time our pack picked off a target that nobody would miss.

District 2 learns to turn a blind eye to the scattered killings. Most of the time, people just know it was the Careers and leave it be. You just have to do it away from the Peacekeeper training centers. Out on the edge of the masonry, by the older, abandoned forges or work sites.

And you have to pick targets that won't matter. People who won't have families or the government all that riled up once we finish them off.

It's common knowledge that people occasionally disappear on the outskirts of District 2 – and if a Peacekeeper does see, he usually lets us slide. After all, we're practically population control. We're preparing for the Games, and the Capitol's soldiers like to see it.

They might just be seeing it again tonight. Roy has the promise of murder in his furious eyes. He turns his back and begins to saunter away.

"Hey, wait!" I shout after him. "Roy! Want to kill something after dark?"

He nods stiffly. "If you're up for it," he calls over his shoulder. There's a minute of silence while he debates whether or not to turn around, but eventually he does. "Who else wants to come?"

"I'm in!" Ignis agrees.

"Forget it." Nate crosses his arms. "I need my sleep," he says, "so I can beat Cato again next time."

"Alright," Roy says. "Zane?"

Zane shrugs. "No thanks."

"Then it's just us," I say, nodding at Roy and Ignis. "After dark. Meet at the western quarry?"

Roy nods. "Deal!"

Ignis smiles. "This should be fun."

We disperse. Melt away. Go to wait until nightfall, when the real fun will begin. When the fiery sunset will match the crimson we spill under the darkening sky.

Because even the strongest stone has cracks to slip through.


End file.
